A therapeutic drug can be toxic or lethal if ingested at or above a specified dosage. A chemical substance or biological agent not intended for oral consumption can have dire health or safety consequences if ingested. Worldwide, thousands of accidental or intentional overdosing or poisoning incidents result in significant morbidity and mortality each year. Healthcare and other costs stemming from treating patients who suffer from complications associated with overdosing on medicines or ingestion of harmful chemical or biological substances or agents are staggeringly high.
A medication, a chemical substance, or a biological agent can be ingested beyond a safe quantity in any of a variety of contexts. For example, and without limitation, a child may ingest a sufficiently large quantity of a medicinal or other chemical or biological substance by mistaking the substance for candy or other food or drink; an adolescent or adult may ingest a harmful, or in some instances lethal, dose of an over-the-counter (OTC) or prescription medication in an attempt to commit suicide; a patient may inadvertently ingest an inappropriately high dose of a medication by misunderstanding a physician's, a pharmacist's, or a pharmaceutical manufacturer's instructions, or by mistaking one medication (and hence its permitted dosage) for another; and a patient being treated for drug addiction may overdose on, for example and without limitation, methadone, a synthetic opiate used to treat heroine dependence.
Methods to date have suggested applying to medicinal compositions an emetic coating to induce emesis (vomiting) and expel a toxic substance from the stomach. However, it has proven difficult to find an effective emetic preparation that has tolerable side effects in a broad patient population. Additionally, emesis carries the risk that a patient may gag during uncontrollable vomiting, and depending on his or her state of intoxication-suffer an accelerated death by asphyxiation
Moreover, emesis is unsuitable for preventing potentially toxic or other harmful effects in certain contexts. This is at least in part because emesis essentially fails to expel a substance poised for absorption by the small or large intestine after the substance has already passed through the stomach.
Accordingly there is a need for an improved composition and method to inhibit, prevent, or ameliorate complications associated with ingestion, or typically an excessive ingestion, of a medicinal, chemical, and/or biological substance or agent. There is also a need for a composition and method to discourage intentional overdose on a medicinal, chemical, and/or biological substance or agent, for example and without limitation, a therapeutic composition such as a psychoactive drug.